IMPERIAL COLLEGE TRANS-GREENLAND 2004

Just after 19:00hrs on Thursday 9th September 2004, all four team members from the Imperial College Trans-Greenland Expedition reached the western margin of the Greenland icecap. In doing so the expedition successfully achieved its objectives to safely cross the inland ice, unsupported, and en-route collect hydrological, meteorological and physiological data for a multitude of research by Scientists at Universities in Staffordshire and Stockholm.

Some 29 days earlier the team had set foot on the ice, near the east coast village of Isertoq. Despite the teams best efforts to minimize weight, the pulks were still heavier than envisaged, with the lightest being 70kg and 100kg the heaviest. The weight of the pulks was deliberately staggered to match the varying levels of ability in the group. However initial progress was still better than anticipated thanks largely to the terrain which was immediately ski-able with just the few small crevasses and small pressure ridges easily negotiated. Eager to get away from polar bear country and blessed by sunny weather with light breezes the team crossed the snowline on day four at which point the gradient started to ease. From then on eight hours of ski-ing was done each day, starting at 7am to make the most of the frozen surface, and ending around 3pm. Brief food stops were taken every hour while exercising, resulting in an average daily straight line distance of 20-22km being covered. This continued up until day fifteen when the increase in cloud build over the previous days led to fresh snowfall.

Snow fell lightly, but almost continuously for the next couple of days producing a four inch thick layer of soft powder on top of a semi-hardened wind-blown snow crust. The heavy pulks just sank in the snow, making it a lot harder to pull them and consequently in eight hours, the distance traveled dropped to 15km on average. Winds strengthened throughout the morning on day eighteen and after just three hours ski-ing 80m.ph. (127k.p.h.) wind speeds forced the day to be abandoned. Battling against the wind, one tent was carefully erected in which all team members sought shelter for the remainder of the day during which the unrelenting wind strengthened further. Thankfully the tent coped with everything the wind threw at it and the following morning, ski-ing was resumed somewhat later than normal, when the winds had died down. The wind had hardened the fresh snow and although the snow-dune surface was highly bumpy and undulating good progress was achieved with on average 23-24km being skied each day. However the uneven terrain took its toll on Dan's skis, causing the metal attachment bar on the front of his boot to brake. Attempts to fix it failed so Dan resorted to a much more tiresome method of ski-ing on one ski.

Two days later softer snows were reached and Dan was able to improvise with straps to fasten his broken boot to the ski, all be it giving very limited directional control. Despite this set-back daily distances traveled were not significantly affected, reaching a high of 28km on day twenty four, when the ice road was reached. Despite all the previous years research and planning around its building, the plug had been pulled on the ice road construction and it had not and was not being built. Thus the team took slightly longer to get off the ice than envisaged, but with food for 38 days this was not a problem. At the time it was frustrating to have to ferry-load equipment across the major crevasse fields but team members are proud not to have dumped any equipment and now feel that the extra effort entailed added to the sense of accomplishment.

Good health was maintained by all team members throughout the expedition, and even minor problems like blisters were largely avoided by using prevention rather than cure. A large proportion of the pulk weight (50-75%) was accounted for by food, but this was deemed worthwhile as it enabled each person to consume on average 4500 calories each day and hence have the energy to cover the necessary distances. Day time temperatures on the ice were on average 0oC to -10oC while night time temperatures ranged from -10oC to -20oC. Conditions were a lot more wintry than last year and all the melt water encountered last year was frozen or buried under snow this year.

The success of this expedition is owed largely to the lessons learned on an arctic training expedition in 2003 to Greenland's west coast. Thus the team members would like to sincerely thank all its supporters, not just this year but also last year, for without you all the above expedition would not have been possible.

Daniel Carrivick
Jonathan Carrivick
David Ward
Adam Rumley